Vincent Mei | Founder and Creative Director at Bajibot

Vincent Mei | Founder and Creative Director at Bajibot

Tell me a little bit about yourself, who you are, and where you are from.
I am the founder and creative director of a boutique digital production agency called Bajibot. Grew up in
Taiwan, where the education system was heavily biased on academics, but as a Taiwanese kid, instead of paying
attention in class, I made doodles and collages out of textbook pages…therefore I was considered as
futureless and rebellious by Taiwanese standards. Thanks to my father, he made a life changing decision by
sending me to the States when I was 13.

How did you get where you are today?
I’ve been drawing and selling my own comic strips (25¢per copy) since 2nd grade, and always wanted to
become a comic book artist. As I mentioned earlier, growing up with a passion in drawing was considered
rebellious and futureless in Taiwan, but since I came to the States, this passion and talent was being encouraged
and promoted throughout my high school years in New Jersey. After high school I got in to the Computer
Graphics & Interactive Media department at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, where I was trained with a wide range of
skill sets; drawing, design, 3D animation, motion graphics, audio, programming, and interactive media…
graduated in 1999 and ever since, I’ve been merging 3D content with interactive media. It’s been my personal niche skill-set throughout my career. Naturally when I went solo and started Bajibot, this 3D+Interactive talent
became our niche offering for Bajibot, creating animations, games, assets for web initiatives.

Over the years I’d say I was fortunate enough to work with some of the most amazing people in the industry;
from my first job at Grey Interactive, to the hottest digital pioneer shop at Dennis Interactive, then onto a
super crafty company called Visual Goodness where I learned from the best in digital production.

An interesting fact is, though I did not follow my childhood dream of becoming a comic book artist, drawing is
still one of my most trusted tools. The ability to storyboard and compose engaging illustrations has
given me the skill set to quickly visualize my thoughts during brainstorming sessions or communicate to team
members and clients.

As the founder and creative director at Bajibot, what does your job entail?
Besides all the day-to-day business management duties, I’d say a good portion of my time is spent on coming
up with clear, creative solutions and guidelines for our team of designers, animators, writers, and developers, so
they can best optimize their own skill sets and most importantly, operate seamlessly as one engine.

Please describe Bajibot and what sets you apart, and describe your vision for founding it.
Bajibot was rooted in digital right from the start, unlike most of our friends in the industry who came from the
broadcast world, then made the transition to digital offerings. My vision for founding Bajibot was to create a
desirable work place where it’s 100% self-motivated, where there is no restriction and hierarchy to
communication. Most importantly a true digital agency that carries zero agency politics and optimized work
flow dedicated only to the best results.

As a manager of other creative, how do you encourage the creative culture? How do you manage other creatives?
I believe confidence fuels performance, therefore not just the creatives, everyone at Bajibot are encouraged to
speaks their creative minds freely. My job is to provide guidelines and digest all the contributed ideas into more
defined concepts, basically crowd-sourcing ideas from our diverse team with different backgrounds and
perspectives, and experiences.

Has anything or anyone influenced your life/career, therefore gave you direction or helped steer you along on your professional path?
My wife.

What is one of your favorite projects you’ve worked on and why?
There are several…but if I was forced to pick one, it’d probably be the State Farm “GoToBat”multi-platform
game project we worked on in collaboration with DDB NY. First of all it was a charity initiative. Users were
able to sign up and play for one of the four major non-profit organizations: American Red Cross, Boys and
Girls Club, Habitat for Humanity, and Teach for America. GoToBat is a 3D baseball home-run-derby type
game that offers an extremely simple game play, users were able to customize their own avatar and try to hit as
many home runs to accumulate charity money to donate to their “team”. I love this project because it basically
utilized every single one of our skill sets: concepting, drawing, design, game design and development, mobile,
3D animation, analytics…and most of all it was for a good cause!

What are you currently working on?
Pitches, and pitches. Our team has been coming up with some very innovative and exciting product ideas to
pitch to brands that we feel best benefit from the ideas and that match Bajibot’s own company ideals. Other
than the pitches, we are currently working on a web app for one of the fastest growing coffee companies in the
US with several locations in New York City – La Colombe Torrefaction. A simple app that educates the
everyday caffeine drinker and offers an education as to what kind of coffee person they are, based on their
personal taste preference. Food dictates their acceptance to certain coffee taste profiles…Also about to kick
off on a task to modernize the Weill Cornell Cancer Center website.

Where and/or when are you most creative? When do the best ideas come to you?
I’m a morning person, for me the best time to think is before 6am.

What is your creative process for conceptualizing and starting to work on a new project?
I wake up early and do my morning thinking, come up with high level directions, I come to the office and draw
things down on paper, then I gather my team and together we refine the direction, and assemble the right team
to execute.

How do you get and keep clients?
I am fortunate enough to have two very talented new business developers, and a strong portfolio to support
them. Once a relationship establishes itself, most of our new business comes from word of mouth, and client
services is crucial to keeping our clients singing for us. Working inside of the Advertising industry in today’s
time obviously presents itself a with a whole new set of challenges. Bajibot is lucky to have talent here who
have experienced what it’s like first hand to work a weekend new business pitch or late Friday night until the
client gives their approval. We try to be as understanding and flexible to our clients needs, sometimes it means
an extra round of revisions (or two…or three), but if the end goal is for a better result, we go for it!

Where do you find inspiration?
My inspiration comes from people; people that I work with, friends, people that I see on the street, subway,
cafes… By observing people’s behavior, this gives me inspiration to create stories around what I see, translate
these people into “users”, then use that persona and work backward to crafting a concept or strategy around

Please describe how your creative brain works. Do you have any routines or rituals? Something that gets the creative juices flowing?
I’m a visual person, I don’t read very often, maybe this has a lot to do with the fact that I didn’t put much
emphasis in developing a nice reading habit growing up…Therefore I source my inspirations from what I see
and who I talk to; from television, people, movies, online videos, museums, travels…these are the things that I
try to do more to get the creative juice flowing.

How do you define success? What has helped you to become successful?
Success is not about achievements and awards, to me success is balance. To reach a balancing point between
the three most important things in life: work, family, and creativity. I’d say at this point in life, I have no
complaints about my job, and I have a very happy family, and I like the fact that I still have a goal to reach when it
comes to growing Bajibot.

What is the best advice you’ve ever received in general, or about how to be more creative?
“There are always two sides to things!” Every problem I am tasked to solve, I try to think from as many
perspectives as I can. In our line of work, it’s not our job to express ourselves, but to create design that
emotionally connects to people.

Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!

Kristin is an international photographer based in Brooklyn, NY. An artist since she could hold a crayon, it wasn't clear what direction she would take until she discovered photography. While studying at Brown she took an introduction to black and white photography course at RISD. In the darkroom, watching her first print develop, she felt the magic, fell in love. At that moment she decided she would pursue photography as a career. Some of her clients include Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure, Sweet Paul Magazine, The Atlantic, Starwood Hotels and Resorts, Bud Light, Delta, Duracell, Sprite, Equinox, Starbucks and Verizon Wireless. She is available for editorial and advertising commissions. Contact Kristin at kristin@kristingladney.com. See more of her work at www.kristingladney.com.

Photos and Interviews by Kristin Gladney

With a curious mind and a love of travel, adventure, people, food and culture, Brooklyn based photographer Kristin Gladney can be found exploring and photographing the globe for commercial and editorial assignments, and non-profit organizations. She is available for comissions outside of Portrait of a Creative. Check out more work at www.kristingladney.com and contact her at kristin@kristingladney.com.